Rich Brown Blues
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Rich Brown Blues

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"Boston Blues Society Review March 2010"

Rich Brown
Beach Blues
Self-released (available on iTunes)
By Karen Nugent
March 2010

Rich Brown is a local boy with a bluesy guitar and a guttural voice to match.

His 2009 six-track disc, Beach Blues, provides a nice sampling of his slide work. Brown is joined on the record by Woody Giessmann of Boston’s beloved Del Fuegos, and producer Hendrick Gideonse of Boston-based Indecent Music.

Besides Giessman and Gideonse, Brown has shared the stage with Bruce Marshall, of the Bruce Marshall Group, Jon Cohan (of the Woody Geissmann Band, formerly with the Tarbox Ramblers), Paul Size (who has played with Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish, Racky Thomas, and Darrel Nulish,) and, in the early 1990s with the fabulous Shirley Lewis.

Recently, he has been studying Piedmont, Delta, and country blues with Paul Rishell.

The CD starts out strongly with “No Shame,” a cool blues shuffle. Brown sort of half-sings and half-speaks the lyrics, which talk about living on the cheap—with some mentions of unpaid child support, halfway houses and arrest warrants. It’s pretty low down: “Will I get one more second chance? / I’m slipping fast.”

“Devil on Your Shoulder” is a sad, folksy ballad about, well, you know, Satan and temptation. There are all kinds of tragic images: a stockyard, a train ride with a third rail, cocaine and acrid smoke. It’s all followed by a call to surrender. Is this a 12-step anthem? I’m not sure, but the guitar work is impressive. In fact, Brown e-mailed that he has been sober for 24 years, and has gone from country to rock to southern rock, before embracing blues, his true love.

The last tune, “Cholesterol Blues,” with its driving backbeat, is amusing, although a bit of a downer. With Brown sounding an awful lot like Johnny Cash, he is ordered by his doctor to give up donuts, steak fries, chili, ice cream, meat—anything other than creatures that swim in water. Brown, who lives in Westboro, responds with how he’s become a veggie junkie, although there’s a refrain of: “I changed my main menu ‘cause I don’t want to die / But once in a while I like steak finished with pie.”

The disc, although more ballad and folk than blues, makes a nice showcase of Brown’s colorful lyrics, growly voice, and pensive guitar. - Boston Blues Society E-Zine


"Beach Blues EP Release"

Rich Brown is a bluesman equally at home with a guitar on his knee on the porch or riding waves in Hawaii. Brown's songs rip belly laughs out of your gut, just as they break your heart. Rich was a prison guard for 20 years and now he's tellin' his story. - Indecent Music Studios


Discography

My first single, Ironman Blues, was released in November 2008.
My first EP, Beach Blues, was released August 2009. Hear both single and EP at http://www.myspace.com/richbrownatemyband

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Bio

I am playing and singing the music I love. And every time I gig, many in the audience stop to listen because it's a little different and grabs their attention. At a recent gig in Bolton, Massachusetts the range in age was early 20's to late 70's and I was approached by folks from all those ages who told me how much they enjoyed the music with many asking "what is that stuff?" I enjoy telling them this stuff is where much of what we all listen to now sprang from the roots of this music. People laugh crazy during one song and mellow down during the next, and the next I might play raucous to bring them back up and smiling. That is the height of my enjoyment, seeing this music affect others like it has me. It's why I chase it, because it got in me real deep. Much of what I play comes from Delta, Piedmont and Country Blues, some from Chicago and has become classic Americana. W.C. Handy Award winners Paul Rishell and Annie Raines introduced me to the music of Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Tommy Johnson, Robert Johnson, Scrapper Blackwell, Barbecue Bob, Muddy Waters, the list goes on up to and including today's great players Buddy Guy, Clarence Gatemouth Brown and Eric Clapton. When I play, I tell my story with these influences present. Some call it Folk Blues because it's what the 'folks" play. This is the real thing. I try to keep that vibe rolling on. My performances are light and funny, sometime dark and moody but not for long. I like to think of my music as an escape from the day to day we all walk through. That's what it did for the people who first created and played the music! People will hear something a bit different when they listen to my music and I've not met an audience that didn't enjoy what they heard!